Their task is to explain, as clearly as possible, what's happened in the last month. How to do that without sounding too, well, biased?
I'm not sure it's possible. They'd have to explain the motivation behind the riots. That's simple enough: That those tearing apart the U.S. Capitol first, believe that the election was stolen; second, were worked up by the outgoing president; and third, thought they could actually overthrow the Electoral College verification and keep Rhymes With Chump president.
All those are facts, although they're based on fantasies. Owing the facts to what's already been established, the teachers would have to go over the election challenges to this point.
They'd have to say, honestly and without bias, that all 50 state elections were verified and certified by the elected officials having the power to do so. They should say, accurately, that that's been their jobs all along, going back to the point at which the state popular elections delivered that state's electoral votes on a winner-take-all basis, except for Nebraska and Maine presently. That reverts to the 19th Century. Nothing new about that, even though some people want to make it sound like it's an original idea.
They should say that both Republican and Democratic Secretaries of State, people who voted for both Biden and Rhymes With Chump (I assume they'd use his real name, but I don't have to), did that job that they're supposed to do according to the law. All this is provable and factually accurate.
Then they could say that Rhymes With Chump tried, over and over again, to mount legal challenges to the vote count and get votes thrown out, giving him certain state victories and reversing the electoral vote count enough to swing the election in his direction. He tried to do that over sixty times. In only one case was a challenge deemed sufficient, and that didn't change the electoral vote count. So: He lost in the popular vote, he lost the electoral vote, and he lost in the courts.
He also tried to get the U.S. Attorney General fired so he could replace him with someone who would challenge the vote in Georgia. But the leading members of the Justice Department threatened to resign if he did that, so that would look very, very bad without any legal support, so Rhymes With Chump didn't actually do that. But he did, before that, get the Georgia Secretary of State on the phone and plead with him to "find 11,800 votes," as if they could be found somehow, and swing the election there.
The Secretary of State of Georgia, Brad Raffensperger, did admit that there were votes that were invented by people using dead people's names. How many? Exactly two. Out of more than five million. Suffice it to say that that didn't make any difference in the final result. Raffensperger did say, though, that they would track down those two bogus votes and find out who tried to defraud the election, if only that much.
A Congressman from Texas, the incredibly crazy Louie Gohmert, said that 16,000 dead people's names were put on ballots in Michigan, the knowledge of which he never sourced. Not true. Michigan's election results were tabulated, verified, and certified. Biden won.
Rhymes With Chump tried to get Milwaukee and Dane Counties' votes recounted, where most of the black people of Wisconsin live, in order to shed light on corruption, which he claimed. Upon another try, Biden gained 87 votes. That racist move didn't work. Wisconsin's leading election official invited the public to view the counting of the votes; I heard her say it myself. Biden won by some 20,000.
Lindsay Graham, the slimy Republican Senator from South Carolina, tried to smear Philadelphia by saying that there's always something a little shady about elections there--whatever knows about that and of course, without proof. It was just nonsense. Pennsylvania's vote count was certified. There was no cheating. Biden won.
Not one significant accusation made by Rhymes With Chump's campaign or lawyers were ever verified or given the slightest credence. They were lies. They fed the Big Lie, that the election had been stolen. Who stole it? How did they do it? Nothing was ever proven, because it didn't happen. Show me the proof, I'd say, and I'll consider it. Otherwise, this is what happened.
It probably would be quite valuable to report the latest attempts as they unfolded, so as to keep the students up-to-date and actually a little bored and/or irritated. After a while, it all got that way. There was no excitement to it; it became pro forma. My mantra would be what it had been for a long time: You can always sue. You can claim unfairness all you want, but you have to bring proof. You can't always win.
With those failed legal attempts, it would, hopefully, put the outrage attaching to the attack on the Capitol out there: the futility of it all, the craven lawlessness, inaccuracy and mendacity of the claim, the ridiculousness of that attempt and the unprecedentedness of it all. But you would also have to follow up to the present day, to keep hammering home the facts of the findings, that the rioters nearly found the members of Congress and what might easily have happened had they found them.
An easy comparison to the Salem witchcraft trials could be made: What happens when mass hysteria grips people gathered together, and they have no other viewpoint with which to compare their own. Free speech is normally a good thing, but manipulative speech to inspire insurrection is a crime. Bringing up Oliver Wendell Holmes' comment about yelling fire in a crowded theater might hold sway here, in addition to his "clear and present danger" declaration, which this incident clearly indicates. "Is the danger clear? Is the danger present?" "And who caused it?" would not be a stretch for students to consider.
But you'd have to add that millions of people believed, or chose to believe, RWC's big lie about the election: that it was fraudulent and stolen, despite there being no evidence and all evidence to the contrary. Someone might ask, then: "Why did they believe it?" And there you'd wade into difficult waters.
You could frame it in terms of RWC's magnetic personality which somehow got people to buy into his vague innuendoes. You could say that if people believed most of his 30,000 lies stated over four years, they'd sure believe this one, perhaps the biggest one of all, especially if they went along with the idea that the media is "the enemy of the people" and is responsible for "fake news." Then it's easy to conclude.
Because somewhere in every classroom, there would be kids whose parents in fact believed the lies. But in your heart, you can't accept or state the validity of that claim. You might hear from the administration. You might hear that parents would call to debate it. And there's where you might need a union to support you.
Because standing out there all by yourself might be too tough to do, regardless of whether the facts are on your side or not. We already know that people who respect the facts aren't necessarily supported by other Republicans who are too scared to take stands based on the truth.
The then Attorney General, Bill Barr, did go out of his way to tell RWC that his claim of fraud was "B.S." That, at least, is a qualified information source. That might bail you out. At the very least, it would be helpful to know that.
And you always have the Constitution, which spells out the process that Mike Pence had to go through to adhere to it and the rule of law on January 6--the process which over 160 Republican members of the House and seven members of the Senate nonetheless challenged after the riots. You might want to explain what that really means. If that process means nothing, you might want to say, then the Constitution means nothing and we have no basis for making any laws other than who has the most guns and can use them the best. Then look them in the eye and ask: Is that what you want?
But to put the Big Lie out there with false equivalency, pretending that it's as valid as the facts warrant, does nobody any good. It might get the wolves to go away for the moment, but does nothing for one's integrity. And you'd have to answer uncomfortable questions sometime later. Simple as that: Don't teach a lie. Normally, you could get fired for it. But this ain't normal.
In some communities, I would think you could get away with a misleading moniker or two if you were excessively religiously afflicted--the derivation of many of the rioters, it turns out--and wanted to sneak in a comment or two: Not exactly say so, but put a few vague misdirections out there. A fellow in my department once told his classes that God won World War II. How patriotic. Can't prove otherwise, can you? I wonder if anybody called the principal.
I went through a tough spot in 2000, admittedly self-inflicted, when I had already made it clear, by putting up posters from the Democratic National Convention, at which I was a delegate (celebrating my real contribution to democracy, but naive about how people would take it), which candidate I supported. Parents pulled their kids out of my classes, but I survived. I didn't back off, though. I told the story straight, using the facts, whether people wanted to hear it or not.
In the middle of all this are other, sweeping, big-picture questions: What is truth? What are facts? What is verifiable proof that something happened (like, say, verified counts of the state votes)? Are all sources equal (no, of course not)? Who, and/or what, is it decent and fair and discursive to believe (Just anybody with a winning personality?)? What does it mean that you believe and accept things as fact (When do you stop reading and say to yourself, 'Okay, now I know'?)? You can drill down pretty far. Maybe this is the time to do it. It sure wouldn't hurt.
Was Cedarburg a Republican town? Remember--the first public rally held by John McCain and Sarah Palin after the national convention in 2008 was held there: Not in Milwaukee, not in Chicago, but in Cedarburg, pop. 13,000 or so. So I took on a wave of protest, rational or not. Even after I put an equal number of both sides' posters on the walls, it continued.
Lots of other teachers teach in lots of other conservative towns in Wisconsin and elsewhere. No doubt they're trying to deal with it all now. I wish them well. And I hope they are devoted to the truth and the provable facts, regardless of where they fall.
In future years, this will have to be included in history books, too. What kind of report will be inserted? What will be left out so it would have to be additionally explained by teachers with integrity?
It would be interesting to know. Like I said, I kind of wish I could teach it. Then again, maybe not.
Be well. Be careful. Wear a mask. One day closer to a vaccine. With some luck, I'll see you down the road.
Mister Mark
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